Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr by Elizabeth Fremantle

And they were
just girls.
You
are a woman. A real woman, Kit.’
    ‘And why would that make me more
lovable?’ She wants to ask him if he’s not worried too, but can’t bear
to burst the bubble.
    ‘It is not that you are a woman. It is
that you are you,’ he says. ‘I cannot explain it. Even the poets cannot
explain love. But you, Kit …’ He pauses, seeming embarrassed, dropping his
gaze. ‘You make sense of my world.’
    How is that possible, she wonders, when
she
cannot find sense anywhere? She wants the feeling of a few minutes ago,
to glimpse that butterfly once more. She is summoned to court tomorrow into the service
of Lady Mary. A butterfly, she reminds herself, can only be truly looked at when it is
dead, and pinned to a board. She shivers, all of a sudden aware of how far the river
chill has seeped into her.
    ‘I am ordered to court,’ she
says, hating that she has killed his butterfly too.
    His jaw tightens, giving him the look of a
petulant boy, and she wants to take him in her arms and make it perfect for him
again.
    ‘Did the King command it?’ he
snaps.
    Katherine wonders if Thomas has talked about
this with her brother. ‘This is the best opportunity in the history of the
Parrs,’ Will had said. ‘The
royal family
, Kit. We’d have our
place in history.’
    ‘Your ambition is too much,
Will,’ she’d spat at him.
    ‘It’s what I was raised to,’
he’d reminded her, ‘we all were.’
    It is true. Their class were raised to lift
their families as high as they could – a perpetual game of chess, so complex it is
impossible to know if you are about to win or about to lose.
    ‘And besides, whoever said anything
about marriage?’ she’d added. ‘The King is likely just toying with me
until he tires of it. His attentions will move on. Just you wait.’
    What would her brother think if he knew his
friend Seymour was standing in the way of his shot at the stars?
    If she married Seymour she wouldn’t be
free for the King. She reprimands herself for even thinking it – marrying Seymour. But
she thinks of it all the time. It is a wild thought indeed. But why not? Why
shouldn’t she have her love match? There are many reasons why not, the least of
them being that, as brother-in-law to the King, Seymour would need royal permission;
without consent it could be treason. Anything can be construed as treason nowadays,
anything that upsets the order of things. And the King dictates the order of things. The
thought of it is a tangle in her head, impossible to undo, tightening constantly; she
can’t
think of it.
    ‘No, it is Lady Mary who has asked for
me,’ she says, trying to keep her voice calm as if there isn’t a great
confusion of thoughts clogging her up.
    ‘I’d wager the King is behind
it,’ he snarls, snatching his hand from hers.
    ‘Are you sulking, Thomas
Seymour?’
    He glowers.
    ‘You’re jealous,’ she
laughs. Her heart gives a little jump of joy at this proof of love, and all those
thoughts of the King are banished, gone, like magic.
    Thomas doesn’t laugh with her, though; he
can barely manage a smile.
    ‘Time, Thomas,’ she soothes.
‘Give it a little time. Once the King has tired of –’
    ‘I don’t want to talk of the
King,’ he snaps, cutting off her words.
    ‘But Thomas,’ she coos,
‘you have nothing to worry about. He’ll marry that Bassett girl. Everyone is
saying it. You’ll see.’ But she fails even to convince herself.
    ‘
I
want you, Kit. I want you
just for me.’
    ‘A little time. That is all. Be
patient.’
    ‘Must you go to court?’
    ‘I must. You know that.’
    ‘And will you take your
stepdaughter?’
    ‘She has been requested.’
    ‘People are talking of her as a match
for me. I don’t want those flames fanned.’ His eyes flit about.
    ‘Just more nonsense. Meg will not
marry anyone without my word.’
    ‘But if the King wishes it?’
    ‘Thomas, the King has more important
things on his mind, I’m sure, than the marriage of